Tag Archive: Social Media Marketing

My wife and I were watching Hulu on our TV yesterday, and the video stream stopped to buffer.

Instantly, because of the silence, my wife and I simultaneously looked over at the TV.

Suddenly it occurred to me: sometimes we’re obsessed with CLUTTER! Our commercials and videos are ‘word-crams’ and ‘info-crams’ because we struggle to push information into an already overstuffed consumer.

Maybe, instead of worrying about all of this chaos, we just need our customers and consumers to see our brand or our company name and reflect on it internally for a second.

Imagine that your ad comes on TV, the audio cuts out, and the viewer is just left with a blank screen and your company logo.

…you’re practically screaming at the top of your lungs (and much louder than your competition) without even making a sound.

(This post was borrowed from several sources and pinned together by me.)

Pinterest seems to be the newest craze on the interwebs, but it can easily be looked if you’re not a part of the website’s largest demographic (it’s easy to look past clicks, demographics, and groups that you’re not a part of).

My wife is always on this site, but, on a daily basis, I won’t be found anywhere near it. This is fine, because I don’t have any personal reasons to be on the site, but, if I have a business (especially one that is trying to sell to a group that makes up the largest demographic of the site’s population), then I’d be crazy to not be taking full advantage of this site!

This is an awesome example of going where your customers are (don’t go fishing in the desert if you want to catch anything!). The companies who have products appealing to this demographic and who are jumping on Pinterest while it is still relatively young are going to come out far ahead of those who are cautiously waiting in the shadows for the moment when ‘it is safe to come out’.

You have to hand it to the University of Rochester for stepping beyond the typical corny collegiate theme song and tacky commercials about “how you’ll go far with an [fill in our college’s name here] education”. I love seeing institutions and companies who are in markets where the advertising has typically been dry, mundane, and rehearsed make a move like this video.

It still has all of the necessary information, and it is still factual, but this will spread in a way that one of their typical advertisements will not.
The fact that this was posted and seen by many, and then reblogged by me and watched by many more is a testament to how much more effective an ad of this nature is in comparison with the traditional approach. Actually, if you think of it, this is more aimed at the target market (the young kids who are about to head off to college) than the traditional ads (I know the parents will often foot the bill, but there is still enough traditional marketing material floating around to pacify the parents).

This is a video that the University of Rochester created to get people excited about their campus and what they have to offer. PS- check out the University of Rochester YouTube channel by clicking here!

Food for thought: Wouldn’t a viral video be a great recruitment tool for your university? Think about it, future college students spend more and more time online. People share millions of videos via Twitter and Facebook everyday. Shouldn’t part of a university’s recruitment campaign take social media into consideration? It’s definitely more cost effective, and it’s “where the students are,” so to speak. If your video went viral (for a good reason), people would recognize your brand. This could push them to your website, and if your website is strong enough, you could encourage those people to visit your campus and eventually apply.

I guess I’m in an infographic mood tonight!
I know several friends with non-profits. It will be handy to hang onto this infographic and re-create it after social media has a few more years under its belt!

Always love a good infographic as you know. This one is based on a piece of research with 44 non-profits in the US who were connecting with their audiences online. There’s quite a lot fo metrics in there but quite telling was the proportion of email subscribers to social engagement.

For every 1,000 email subscribers, these charities and other NFPs has about 100 facebook fans, 30 twitter followers and 12 mobile subscribers.

Additionally, 35% of all revenue raised online came from email messaging, with an open rate of 12% and response rate of .08% on fundraising messages.

As the researchers point out, the data helps to establish a few benchmarks by which other non-profits can review and determine if their digital and social media fundraising efforts are on, above or below par with their peers. With the advent of social commerce, much of this data is likely to become enmeshed…

Yet another great post! I would have never thought of buying “bookend” TV commercials (then again, I’m not in the position to purchase any TV commercials either!).

Anyway, the topic of video length is a good one (especially with the rise of YouTube and the online video age).

Two things stick out in my mind:

-First of all, a great example, any videos by Vat19.com. Talk about amazing online video marketing! These folks have it down. I highly recommend checking out any and all of their videos; they are very entertaining and clever (I promise I’m not making any commission from them!).

-Secondly, the Miller High Life commercial from a few Super Bowls back. Miller bought a 1 second spot and the commercial consisted of one man yelling “HIGH LIFE” at the top of his lungs at the camera. It happened so fast that it was hard to tell what even happened, but the media buzz created by the ad before and after the Super Bowl was greater than the hype for all of the other commercials combined.

Indeed, when it comes to video advertising, it is not always about the length of the video, but how you use it… 😉

Controversy swirls over the “length” of a video and it’s “effectiveness”. What makes a good video effective? An effective video is one where the viewer comes away having learned something by watching… and it stays with them. What is a good video? Well, a good video can be any length of time… personally I think a good video can run near that of a small short film – got 5 minutes? Sure, what’s the hurry? Or a good video can be as short at 5 seconds. Some might even argue an effective video can be delivered in even less time than that. A good mental-visual video stamp can stay with you… even from the shortest of clips.

How long should your videos be? What’s the use? The use of your video can and should dictate the length of your video. Do you strictly use video for television advertising? Then the…

Great article on Social Media Marketing basics (I especially like that the focus is on LinkedIn/YouTube, which I think are widely underutilized by most companies who solely focus on Facebook and Blogging)!